Moving by Gail White

Moving

How difficult it is to move
even from simple place to place,
how hard to pack the books, to shove
the cat into its carrying case;

how hard to sit in Airport-land
through one more endless flight delay
while Trebizond or Samarkand
sits half a universe away;

how hard to get the papers filed
that separate you from your past,
newly and legally enisled,

and yet, and yet my father’s last
great journey out of self to shade—
how easily and quickly made.

by Gail White, first published in Measure

Editor’s note: Sonnets often say the hardest things with the most ease.